Whose idea of stupid?

Since we seem to be a society that judges quickly, we often waste little time affixing all sorts of labels to all sorts of people and all sorts of situations.

That guys a loser (not to mention low energy).

We tried that before.

This will never work.

Your idea is stupid.

To be sure, there’s no shortage of dumb ideas. Yet sometimes stupid wins.

Facebook and Amazon were once pilloried as concepts that couldn’t possibly work. When Google started it was the 20th search engine to launch and completely lacked a revenue model. It also followed in the footsteps of several high-profile flameouts.

Tesla, Instagram and PayPal were all once seen as pretty ridiculous business models by just about everybody.

Psychologists talk about “projection”–the notion that when we feel the need to point out the failings of others it’s often rooted in our own insecurities. “If you spot it, you got it” as some like to say.

Sometimes there is stupidity in the world that needs to be called out and confronted.